Chapter 40 TrashTreasure
TRASH OR TREASURE
Angeline steals me away as soon as she arrives at the fête. “Now, listen. I have my sights set on Max Walker.”
I’m aware she’s sweet on the art collector. She already told Coco, and me, and the rest of the team. “He assures me he’ll be here.”
She laughs, tugging on her rose-gold necklace. “I said that already, didn’t I?”
“You might have mentioned it,” I say with a smile, fighting to keep my focus on her.
But it’s hard with the piano mere feet away. Harder, too, with those fucking lights on the windows—those damn flickering lights.
The hardest part, though, is when I spot a blonde hostess introducing Bellamy to Kendrick Lawton. He runs a charity to promote literacy and has struggled to find a companion online. That’s why he turned to Carpe Diem. He’s old school, kind, smart, and completely open to love.
He’ll be perfect for Bellamy.
So damn perfect, she’ll fall in love tonight.
That can’t happen.
I drag my attention back to my corporate partner, but I’m only half present.
I’m also hunting through my mental file on Kendrick.
“It’s going to be great,” I say. “Max will be here soon. And we’ll make sure you talk to him.
I know it’ll go well.” I’ve said similar words to many clients, many times, on many nights. But this time, they feel off.
Everything feels a little off tonight.
Angeline’s hand flutters around her necklace, tugging it again. “I’ll stay right here, by these pretty paintings and the champagne bar. It’s been a while since I even had a date. But here I am, because romance is my Achilles’ heel. I can’t resist trying again.”
That’s it! I need to find Kendrick’s Achilles’ heel, and I think I’ve got it. I know from my database that the dapper man loves Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Excuse me for just a moment,” I tell Angeline, then I leave her and head toward Bellamy at the bar. The brunette is chatting with the bespectacled guy and . . . no.
Just no.
If I’m not responding to app messages, she doesn’t get to talk to dudes.
Plastering on a smile, I stride right over to them. “Hello, Bellamy. Hello, Kendrick. How is everything tonight?”
The man flashes me a grin. “Fantastic, now that I’ve met Bellamy.”
“Bellamy makes everything better,” I agree pleasantly, but I’m a cat playing with a mouse.
“Thanks, Easton,” she says, then laughs. She sounds a touch nervous. Maybe about me coming over. But the three-second lull in the conversation that comes next is my opening, and I take it.
“I heard your podcast. So amazing how many times you’ve tried online dating,” I say, taking my time with the mouse.
“You heard my podcast today?” There’s a note of hope in her voice.
I didn’t have a chance to hear today’s podcast. But I know her schtick, and I nod. “How you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs.”
“Okay,” she says tentatively, glancing at Kendrick and back at me. “And you want to talk about it now?”
I shrug, fueled by bravado and jealousy and other strange feelings brewing inside me. “Sure. Why not? We could talk about all the things you’re looking for in romance, like we discussed the other week. This’ll be fun.” I rub my palms together, getting ready to go for the kill.
“I’m not sure now is the moment,” Bellamy says, her eyes asking what the hell I’m doing.
I don’t know either but something has a hold of me as I turn to the man who thinks he can win her. “Kendrick, did you know Bellamy thinks Daisy Buchanan is a selfish twat?”
Kendrick jerks his gaze back to me, blinking in confusion. “Oh. Is that so?” He sounds flummoxed, and that’s excellent.
“Easton—” she cuts in.
“But she is,” I say. “Daisy’s such a selfish creature. Don’t you agree?” I ask Kendrick. “My bad. I forgot you love The Great Gatsby, and probably its main characters too.”
“I do. I think Daisy is terribly misunderstood,” Kendrick says.
I pretend to be appalled at my faux pas. “Oopsy Daisy, as they say. But hey, at least there’s Hemingway, right? You two can bond over him.”
I’d bet my sanity Bellamy despises Hemingway. “You said he was trash when we were having dinner, didn’t you, Bellamy? When we debated if he’s trash or treasure?”
She curls her lip, shooting me death rays with her stare. “No. I never said that.”
“But you think it, right?” There’s no way she likes Hemingway.
An annoyed sound—is that a growl?—falls from her lips. “I don’t want to talk about Hemingway.”
Kendrick clears his throat, edging away from the bar. “Excuse me for just a second.”
Then he’s gone.
Yes! Victory is mine! I have vanquished the enemy.
Bellamy parks her hands on her hips. “What the hell was that all about?”
Protecting my turf, that’s what. “Listen, he was all wrong for you. I have someone else in mind.”
“So, let me get this right. Kendrick is wrong for me, so you decided to stir shit up about Daisy Buchanan and Ernest Hemingway? Things we discussed when it was just you and me?”
“Well, since you told me your feelings about Daisy when we first met, I presumed it was something you wanted all new dates to know.”
“I didn’t. And I never even told you what I think of Hemingway,” she snarls.
“I guessed right, though, didn’t I?” I’m feeling pretty good about how well I know her.
“Easton . . . can we just—”
But I catch sight of Max as he sweeps into the warehouse, and I’ll have to tend to Angeline. I hold up a wait-a-moment finger. “Give me one second. I’ve got someone else for you.”
“I don’t want—”
Walking away from her, I find Gretchen, my lead hostess, and pull her aside. “Favor. Don’t introduce anyone to Bellamy Hart.”
“You had a few men for her to meet, though,” she says.
“Change of plans. Spread the word. Especially not Payton Ellis,” I add. I want to keep all the men away from her, and that guy is tailor-made for Bellamy.
But I’ve got to keep my promise to Angeline too, and Max Walker is headed for the craft cocktail bar. I need to usher him to Angeline by the champagne bar.
Except . . .
Fuck me hard with a rusty chainsaw.
As the torch singer melts into a sultry Ella Fitzgerald tune, Payton Ellis is sailing over to Bellamy on his own.
No. Way.
The man is an app designer with an English degree. He wants a woman who’s smart, independent, beautiful, and loves the theater.
Max can wait.
I double back to Bellamy and my new nemesis. Must. Destroy. Him.
“Hello, there,” I say brightly. “How are you doing, Payton?”
The dark-haired man gives an amiable smile. Bellamy gives a fake one.
“Great. Just great. I was telling Bellamy about a play I saw last weekend.”
“And I love theater,” she offers pointedly. “A lot.”
I adopt a dubious look, tilting my head. “That’s not what you said to me. You said you didn’t like plays.”
Payton furrows his brow, then turns to Bellamy. “Oh, I thought you liked Albee.”
“Edward Albee is great. I never said I don’t like plays, Easton.” Her tone is ice.
I keep mine friendly. “I recall you saying late the other night that you preferred musicals.”
“That’s not exactly what I said,” she corrects me. The tundra of her tone turns arctic.
“I don’t think I’m mistaken. It was late. The stars shone through the windows of your place,” I say, waxing on.
“The other night?” Payton croaks.
“Yes, we were chatting then. Weren’t we, Bellamy?”
Her lips are a pale, fixed line, holding in all the anger. But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
“At night?” Payton asks again, concerned.
I laugh like I’ve got a secret. “Well, more like midnight,” I whisper.
“Oh,” he says in a strangled voice.
Bellamy grabs my arm and tugs me away through the crowd, toward the elevator. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Guarding my horde of gold. “My job,” I say.
“If your job is sabotaging everything,” she seethes.
I scoff. “Please. I’m just making sure you meet the right men. He was all wrong too.”
She fumes so hard I swear smoke billows from her nostrils. “And no one gets to decide for themselves? Because you know best?”
“I do,” I grit out. I know her better than anyone. And what is there to decide? How the fuck can she want to meet anyone else?
“This is great. Just great. The right men, Easton? You’re making sure I meet . . . the right men?” She sketches quotes that seem more like ferocious claw marks.
“Yes.” I play dumb this round. “You didn’t like them?”
“So, this is how we’re doing it?”
“Doing what?”
She whips her hand from her to me and back. “This thing. You and me.”
Annoyance sparks and grows in me. That’s the problem. There can’t be a her and me that won’t ache like flickering lights. But I can’t stand the thought of her and anyone else either.
I search for a way out of this argument and steer back to the bet. “I thought we were supposed to help each other find love. The whole second-chance thing. Isn’t that the plan? Find love and then gloat?” I fix on a smile that I don’t fucking feel. “You’re all too happy to meet other men.”
“Don’t,” she hisses.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t go there,” she says, her tone a blinking red warning. “I came here tonight for you. You wanted to prove your parties were the better way to meet.”
“And I got online today,” I counter. “But I haven’t responded to a single swipe, tap, or poke, or coffee, or bagel request.”
She flaps her hand toward the other room where the festivities continue. “You think I want these other guys? Is that why you’re acting like a total ass?”
“Well?” I challenge. “Do you?”
She folds her arms over her chest. “What do you think? Did you even listen to my podcast today?”
“No. I was busy. Is that what you wanted to talk about tonight?”
She lifts her gaze to the ceiling as if she’s struggling for what to say. When she returns it to me, her eyes are full of frustration and maybe tinged with sadness too. “You’re so clueless. I wanted to talk to you tonight. I didn’t come here to find love.”
“Isn’t that what you want? To find love?”
“Yes, but I came here tonight for you. Because I said I would. Because I thought you wanted all this,” she says, gesturing wildly, encompassing all the party.
“Because I wanted to be a woman of my word. Stick to the terms of our bet and show up at your parties.” She sucks in a breath, then raises her chin. “But guess what?”
“What?”
She pokes my chest. “I found love already, you dumbass.”
My brain goes haywire. “You met someone? Here?”
Who is he? I’ll take him down.
With fire in her eyes, she grabs my shirt and twists it hard. “Yes, you idiot. I met someone. I fell in love.”
A drum beats deafening loudly in my ears. “Who the hell is it?”
She jerks me even closer. “Look in the mirror. I’m not interested in these men.
But you can’t do this to me, Easton. You can’t ask me to come to your party and tell me you want to set me up, and then sabotage every chance I have.
” She bites out each word as my head reels.
“I want love. And I deserve it. And I want it with you.”
With me.
Holy shit.
She wants it with me.
My heart scrambles to break out of its cage, to leap into her waiting arms. It wrestles to get away from me, especially when she softens her voice, lightens her grip. “I fell in love with you, you fucking idiot. I don’t want anyone else. I want you to be mine. All mine. Don’t you get it, Easton?”
I do, I want to say.
I don’t want anyone else either, I want to tell her.
I want you only.
But those words won’t form. My throat sticks with sand and my tongue feels heavy because . . .
This feeling.
This too intense, too much, too good, too big, too everything emotion is going to smother me.
It will eat me alive, and I will be lost for good.
One more time, I shove all those feelings far, far away.
“Evidently, I don’t,” I say.
A lone tear slides down one rouged cheek, but my tough, resilient woman swipes it away defiantly. She looks at me, blows out a breath, waits one more beat as if to see what I’ll do.
But I don’t move. I simply can’t.
She presses her lips together and nods tightly.
“Goodbye, Easton,” she says. Then she turns toward the stairwell and disappears through the door.
For the second time in a day, I let her go. I stand here, watching the door, in case she comes back.
She doesn’t.
I don’t know what just happened. No, I do. I just don’t know why I let it.